Does the Future of Privacy Depend on Cryptocurrency?

The way the world is changing there is lots of personal information that is shared. Much of this is without individuals being fully aware of what is happening behind the scenes. This occurs not only on the internet, but it also happens in financial elements.

Transactions are logged in supermarkets when credit cards are used, and streams of user data are built up that is passed around between larger corporations.

User Internet Privacy

Users who do much of their purchasing on the internet are looking to regain privacy, and many have already resorted to the use of VPN services. This resort is to get around internet privacy issues and stop anyone from being able to cache online activity and use it for their own purpose.

One of the latest innovations has come with the Blockchain revolution which goes some way to bring user privacy back to them.

Secure Cryptocurrencies

The vision of the cryptocurrency inventor was to bring privacy and security and take it away from banking institutions thus giving a decentralized currency. Bitcoin is the most famous at present though it does have its flaws, security for the coin is not one of them as the Blockchain or BTC has never been hacked (source: https://thebitcoinscode.com). The threat of theft is down to exchanges being hacked, although if a user has their crypto stored in an offline cryptocurrency wallet, this should be less of a concern.

How Cryptocurrencies Protect Privacy

Flaws in BTC range from the way transactions are performed and the visibility of transactions that are made. Many coins since BTC was conceived have taken a step back and striven toward making privacy one of their main benefits. Proof of Work and Proof of Stake make transactions secure yet visible in the public ledger of the Blockchain. For many users, this visibility is too much.

One of the first cryptocurrencies that focus on private transactions is Komodo that uses a delayed proof of work. Here backups are made of your Blockchain’s data where it is notarized, so all sizes of transactions come with full security with added privacy by integrating Zero-knowledge proofs.

Next up is Verge which takes BTC concepts much further and was designed for everyday use. Transactions performed using this crypto are passed over anonymity-centric networks to hide IP addresses where payments are made or received.

This adds another layer of untraceable usability to end users while keeping transaction speed to a minimum. Another coin that takes things a little further is Dash which brings a unique peer-to-peer network which is fully-incentivized.

With this concept, the miners are not paid for performing transactions they are rewarded for their contribution in storing and serving the Blockchain to users along with its validation.

The master-nodes on this network work in secure clusters which are named Quorums that provide the network services and prevent any threats of network attacks. Although built upon BTC’s core code this coin provides users with their own wallet infrastructure while transaction fees are negligible compared to BTC.

A New Level of Privacy

The final coin takes privacy to the next level. If Ethereum was seen as a second generation cryptocurrency and attempted to fix the flaws with Bitcoin.

There is third generation crypto which is set to make a bigger splash later this year bringing even more privacy and security than most other coins before it. Skycoin, does not just bring the concept of mesh networking to the fore it brings with it a full mesh-network that is genuinely peer-to-peer.

The underlying network is not an infrastructure which is in place Skywire is a “New Internet” and is made up of standalone nodes. These nodes replace miners as with BTC, and they function by providing services such as connection and forwarding of data to users.

The network and user privacy and security are performed as all data is split between nodes and not one point holds or has access to everything.

A New Internet

Skywire introduces this new network which hands a decentralized internet back to individuals. Surfing will happen without any worry of leaving an online trail that anyone can store and use for marketing purposes.

The crypto is also protected against any 51% attacks and the influence of mining pools. Satoshi’s vision of a fully decentralized currency and internet is on its way.

All users are able to benefit from a mesh network that is fully secure, offers privacy and is funded with an incentive-based coin that improves the network the more users who are attracted toward it.

This is a guest post by Henry Benjamin, Marketing Coordinator at Skycoin.